Certain delicate fabrics are not suitable for conventional in-home immersion cleaning processes. Home washing machines, which provide excellent cleaning results for the majority of fabrics used in today's society, can, under certain conditions, shrink or otherwise damage silk, linen, wool and other delicate fabrics. Consumers typically have their delicate fabric items “dry-cleaned”. Unfortunately, dry-cleaning usually involves immersing the fabrics in various hydrocarbon and halocarbon solvents that require special handling and must be reclaimed, making the process unsuitable for in-home use. Hence, dry-cleaning has traditionally been restricted to commercial establishments making it less convenient and more costly than in-home laundering processes. But, excluding cost and convenience, dry-cleaning processes remain generally superior to in-home, immersion laundering processes for the care of fine fabrics.
Attempts have been made to provide in-home dry-cleaning systems that combine the fabric cleaning and refreshing of in-home, immersion laundering processes with the fabric care benefits of dry-cleaning processes. One such in-home system for cleaning and refreshing garments comprises a substrate sheet containing various liquid or gelled cleaning agents, and a non-fabric plastic bag. The garments are placed in the bag together with the sheet, and then tumbled in a conventional clothes dryer. However, due to the properties of the non-fabric plastic bag, this in-home system is not suitable for hot or high heat dryers nor is it suitable for most conventional laundromat dryers which operate at higher temperatures than most in-home conventional dryers.
Further, conventional non-fabric plastic bags tend to lose their shape and/or become wrinkled during use in dryers.
Further yet, conventional non-fabric plastic bags are relatively rigid and/or tend to lose their pliability during use in dryers.
Still further yet, conventional non-fabric plastic bags tend to be relatively noisy during filling of the bag with garment(s) and/or during use in dryers and/or after being subjected to heat.
Accordingly, there is a need for a fabric care containment bag that is suitable for use in in-home dry-cleaning processes and/or laundromat dry-cleaning processes which resists melting at higher temperatures than conventional fabric care containment bags; namely, non-fabric plastic fabric care containment bags; a fabric care containment bag that is more pliable and/or supple than conventional non-fabric plastic fabric care containment bags; a fabric care containment bag that retains more of its pliability and/or suppleness than conventional non-fabric plastic fabric care containment bags after being subjected to heat; a fabric care containment bag that produces less noise during use than the conventional non-fabric plastic fabric care containment bags; a fabric care containment bag that retains its shape and/or resists wrinkling during use better than the conventional non-fabric plastic fabric care containment bags; and a fabric care kit comprising such a fabric care containment bag.